To: i-node who wrote (41382 ) 3/9/2017 9:38:05 PM From: Alex MG Read Replies (1) | Respond to >>medicare is broke. Some 50 Trillion short of funding. factcheck.org originally enacted in the 1960s is Part A, which covers payments to hospitals, and Part B, which covers payments to physicians. Other parts were added later — Part C (Medicare Advantage, or private insurance options) and Part D (prescription drug coverage). Part A is funded by a payroll tax that goes into a trust fund, similar to Social Security trust funds, while the physician and prescription drug aspects of Medicare are mainly paid for with general government revenues.2016 trustees report says .became law in 1965 . By 1970, the trustees report projected that “the trust fund would be exhausted in fiscal year 1973, unless additional financing is provided.”exhaustion was expected in 1994 ; in 1990 the insolvency date was 2003. But Congress has repeatedly pushed back those dates, mainly through increasing taxes — both the payroll rate and wages subject to the tax. Right now, that tax rate is 1.45 percent on wages for employees and employers each, with no ceiling on wages subject to the tax since 1993 . (The Affordable Care Act added a Medicare surcharge on high-income wage earners, as we will explain later.)including Ryan , and Democrats in the past .adding a 0.9 percent tax on earnings above $200,000 for single taxpayers or $250,000 for married couples — and cut the growth of future spending. Additional revenue and savings actually extend the life of the trust fund.2010 report estimated that the ACA had added 12 years to the life of the Part A trust fund.
